MUCH of the language in the debate on how inheritance tax changes will affect farmers has been intemperate, inaccurate and deliberately inflammatory.

In the Scottish Parliament, the Tories accused the Labour government of “taking our land.”

The SNP backed them up, claiming that the proposed change to end the 100 per cent exemption of farms from inheritance tax was “catastrophic” for the farming industry in Scotland.

These are both an invention. Very few local farmers anywhere in rural Scotland, still less in the crofting counties, will be affected at all.

In fact, the National Farmers Union (NFU) has been putting out briefings in which they claim that the Treasury figures were “skewed” by the inclusion of small holdings.

Which rather gives lie to the idea that crofters, smallholders and tenant farmers will be hit.

What it does mean, of course, is that the biggest and richest landowners, represented by both the NFU and Scottish Land and Estates, will have to start paying inheritance tax.

That will include those absentee landlords and the super-rich who view farmland as a tax shelter.

We know that land agents, acting for investment institutions, representing the vested interests of high-net-worth individuals, not the interests of farmers, crofters, rural communities or consumers, have been buying up land in Scotland not to produce food but to avoid paying tax.

And the trusts, the limited companies and the offshore interests with links to tax havens will be already planning how to get around it.

It was John Ruskin who said that wealth earned by “faithful industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities” was one thing; wealth that signified “mortal luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane” was quite another.

And if nothing else, this whole debate has reminded us that there is no class better organised and none so militant as the old nobility and the new Establishment combining to defend their vested hereditary interests in order to ossify the distribution of wealth from one generation to the next.

And in so doing, they are making absolutely sure that the meek do not inherit the Earth.

In Britain today, private wealth has never been so great. Private fortunes have never been higher. Yet investment in public services, in the common good, has fallen way behind.

I am not surprised to see the Conservatives posing as arch-defenders of this status quo and backing the revolt of the rich against it. But how telling is it that the SNP is joining them in defence of this ugly inequality?

The fact is that 40 per cent of agricultural property relief currently goes to the wealthiest 7 per cent. It is a system which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.

It deepens yet further the gross inequality of wealth in our society. The opponents of this measure cannot claim to be on the side of the poor and take the side of the rich.

This reform is, by any measure, a rather modest proposal. After all, there remains 100 per cent inheritance tax relief for farm owners with assets valued below £1 million. That will continue to apply to farm buildings, farm cottages and farmhouses.

The inheritance tax threshold for everybody else who leaves property in their estate to children is just £500,000.

The effective inheritance tax rate for farmers, at 20 per cent, will be half of what everyone else has to stump up.

There will still be no capital gains tax to be paid. Rollover reliefs for the sale of farmland for redevelopment remain untouched. Agricultural land and buildings will continue to be 100 per cent exempt from non-domestic rates.

Farmers will still be filling up with red diesel, paying a rebated rate of duty of just 11 pence instead of 58 pence a litre. And they will still also be paying the reduced rate of 5 per cent VAT on domestic heating and electricity costs.

There remains zero VAT rating on most agricultural products. VAT exemption on insurance and bank interest. And farm income from subsidies and grants will still be outside the scope of VAT altogether.

So, the major tax advantages for farmers as farmers, remain in place. This is simply a question about how we take a step towards the fairer taxation of inherited wealth.

So, I support this limited measure in the Budget. In my view, the government could have gone much further by reintroducing the bankers’ bonus cap, for example.

It could have closed in full the gap between capital gains tax and income tax.

The capital gains tax rollover relief on farmland sold for development — for housing, industrial development, or infrastructure, which means that the proceeds, that is, the capital gains, which can be considerable, are not subject to capital gains tax at all could also have been reformed.

And as wealth inequality continues to rise, there should be a wealth tax, pure and simple.

We have soaring financial wealth on the one hand and the immiseration of poverty and unmanageable indebtedness on the other.

And nowhere is this more evident than in places like rural Scotland, where poverty amid plenty is the biggest challenge we face, not just as a nation but as a society.

The super-rich have been getting away with it for far too long. With their disproportionate wealth has come disproportionate power and influence, not least in the tax system.

It is an affront to democracy that we can neither afford nor should tolerate any longer.

Richard Leonard is the Scottish Labour MSP for the Central Scotland Region.